Johannes Keienburg

Johannes Keienburg holds a PhD (Doctor of Philosophy) from Humboldt University of Berlin (2005–2008). He began his career as a journalist, working for the German public broadcaster ARD, before moving into management consulting. In 2011 he joined McKinsey & Company, where he advised international healthcare companies. In 2014 he joined the German broadcaster and digital investor ProSiebenSat.1 Media SE as EVP Group Strategy and Managing Director Digital.

At the end of 2018, Keienburg took over as CEO of HitFox Group from founder Jan Beckers. HitFox GmbH — founded in 2011 by Jan Beckers, Hendrik Krawinkel and Tim Koschella — was a Berlin company builder and investor that built and backed more than 20 companies across data/advertising technology, financial technology and digital health, with over 1,200 employees across 10+ locations. Under his leadership the group rebranded from HitFox Group to IONIQ Group in May 2019, with a stated ambition of reaching €1 billion in total portfolio value.

Keienburg has been deeply involved in Berlin's digital-health ecosystem. He is a Managing Director of Heartbeat Labs (a Berlin healthcare company builder founded in 2017, alongside Stephanie Kaiser and Hendrik Krawinkel) and joined the leadership of Heal Capital — the roughly €100M+ venture fund backed by German private health insurers and initiated together with Flying Health and Heartbeat Labs — as a Managing Director/Partner in 2020, focused on technology-enabled healthcare companies.

In 2022 he co-founded Cakewalk, a Berlin-based SaaS security / identity-and-access-management startup, together with Gil Roeder (ex-Klarna) and Gonzalo Rubio Torrente (ex-Pleo), where he serves as Co-Founder & CEO. Cakewalk helps small and mid-sized companies adopt and control the software applications their employees use.

• Stage: Seed and early-stage — as a company builder (HitFox/IONIQ, Heartbeat Labs), fund partner (Heal Capital), and personal angel.
• Sectors: Data and advertising technology, fintech/insurtech, and digital health/health tech — the three pillars of the HitFox/IONIQ portfolio, plus B2B SaaS/security via his own operating work at Cakewalk.
• Geography: Europe, with a strong German/Berlin base.
• What makes him say yes — data plus judgment: His stated philosophy is that *"the best entrepreneurs are able to combine data and gut."* He emphasizes data-driven decision-making, radical transparency as a leadership approach, and storytelling/communication as core to building companies.
• Operator-investor angle: His background spans journalism, McKinsey consulting, corporate strategy (ProSiebenSat.1), company building and founding — so he tends to weigh strategic clarity and executional discipline, not just the idea.